Lest We Forget

On a bleak Sunday in February 2005, some 60 years after its liberation by the
Red Army, I stood in the snow looking at the large wrought iron gate at the
State Museum at Auschwitz
– Birkenau in Poland. It was still snowing and a bitter wind was cutting through
my thick overcoat and woollen hat. I could not even begin to imagine what it
must have been like for the thousands of inmates in this extermination camp
between 1941 and 1945.

Having been a police officer for 35 years I am not given to displaying an
emotional reaction to the horrors that police work throws up. I am not sure
however that even I was ready for the story that unfolded before my eyes during
my relatively fleeting visit to what amounted to a murder factory of industrial
proportions.

For five terrifying years the camp conjured up fear among the people of the
German occupied territories of Europe. It was an all too real living nightmare
for over one million fellow human beings, which for each and every one of them
was a personal tragedy.

Auschwitz was planned, designed and opened by the Nazis in 1940 to hold Polish
political prisoners. It was used to terrorise and exterminate the citizens of
occupied Poland, but soon became a factory of death for undesirables, mainly
Jews, from all over occupied Europe. Other inmates included Soviet prisoners of
war, Gypsies, Czechs, Yugoslavs, French, Austrians and others.

Poland of course attempted to defend the homeland in the September Campaign of
1939 but was overrun by the Germans, leading directly to Britain declaring war
on Hitler
’s Germany. The town of Oswiecim and the surrounding districts were incorporated
within the Third Reich and given the German name of Auschwitz.

The striking symbol of Auschwitz of course is the main gate which I found myself
standing before, with the cynical legend at the top
“Arbeit macht frei” [work brings freedom]. It was through this gate that prisoners were marched out
of the camp to work for more than 12 hours, before returning to the strains of
the camp orchestra playing marches [again, cynically to ease the counting of
the returning prisoners by the SS].

Initially the camp comprised 20 buildings; 14 at ground level and six with an
upper floor. Between 1941 and 1942 an extra storey was added to all ground
floor buildings and eight additional blocks were constructed using the
prisoners as the workforce. The number of prisoners averaged 13,000 to 16,000
reaching a record 20,000 in the course of 1942. As the numbers grew, the size
of the camp by necessity increased and it became a gruesome factory of death.
Auschwitz-I was the forerunner of a whole generation of new camps. An
additional camp, Auschwitz-II, later called Birkenau, was constructed three
kilometres away. Additional camps were established in the vicinity of
steelworks, mines and factories where the inmates were exploited for their
low-cost labour. The first two, Auschwitz-I and Birkenau, are maintained as
state museums open to the public.

At Birkenau, for example, there are the remnants of four crematoria, gas
chambers, cremation pits and pyres. Also retained is the special cattle-truck
unloading platform where the deportees were selected for work or for
extermination. There is also a pond with human ashes, much of it used to
manufacture agricultural fertilizer! Indeed one thing that stays with me from
the visit was the sheer efficiency of it all
– the Nazis wasted very little. Behind glass showcases there are thousands of
shoes, children
’s clothing, spectacles and, most bizarre, a large exhibit of false limbs taken
from prisoners, all of which were to be sent to Germany for recycling.

It became apparent to me that all inmates were condemned to the same fate – slow extermination by hunger, exhausting work, criminal medical experiments, or
to a quicker death, as a result of individual and mass executions. The decision
had been taken by the chief of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, and drawings have been
discovered which show quite clearly that this industrial killing factory was
designed methodically. There are German blueprints showing designs for
crematoria dated 27 January 1942.

The scene is perhaps best described by witnesses at the time. For example from
the manuscript of the Jewish prisoner Zalmen Gadowski, discovered after the war
at the site of the camp.

“Men and women had to line up separately. These orders struck everyone like
lightning. Now in the final stage, when the end of the road had been reached,
they ordered the dividing, the sundering, of the inseparable
……of what had been joined together and grown into a single indivisible whole.
No-one took a step, for no-one could believe in something that was
unbelievable. It could not be that the unreal had become real, a fact. Yet the
hail of blows that fell upon the first rank of the people standing there made
such an impact that families began to draw apart even in the rows at the back.

…They supposed that the formal procedure of precisely determining the number of
new arrivals was beginning, the two sexes separately. They sensed that the most
important moment was now approaching, when it would be necessary to comfort
each other and give consolation.
”

From the memoirs of Pery Broad, an SS man in the camp Gestapo.

“First of all the men and women were separated. Dreadful scenes of farewell
occur. Married couples are separated and mothers wave to their sons for the
last time.

The columns stand on the ramp, in rows of five, several metres apart. When
someone succumbs to the pain of farewell and runs one last time to the other
column in order to reach out a hand to the beloved and whisper a few comforting
words, the SS man instantly rains down blows and shoves that person back in
place. Now the SS physician begins the division into those who, in his opinion,
are capable of labour and those who are not. Mothers with little children are
regarded in principle as incapable of labour, as are all those who give an
impression of being frail or sick. Portable wooden stairs are placed at the
backs of trucks and those selected by the SS physician as unfit for labour must
climb in.

The SS men from the reception department count them as they go up the steps one
by one. In the same way, they count all those fit for labour, who must set out
on the march to the men
’s or women’s camp. All the baggage must be left on the ramp. The prisoners are told that it
will later be delivered by truck. This is true so far as it goes, except that
none of the prisoners will see their belongings again, and everything will end
up in the safes, warehouses and SS kitchens.

Smaller baggage containing essential items and whatever they are wearing will be
taken from them later when they are received into the camps.
”

From the notes of the Jewish prisoner Lejb Langfus, written illegally in the
camp and buried next to the crematorium.

“They were packed in as tightly as possible. It was hard to even imagine that so
many people could fit into such a small room. Everyone who tried to get out was
shot for resisting, or torn apart by the dogs. Asphyxiation from lack of air
would have come within a few hours. Then all the doors were closed tight and
the gas was thrown in through a small window in the ceiling. The people locked
inside could do nothing. So they only cried out in bitter, mournful voices full
of despair, and still others sobbed spasmodically and sent up a dreadful
piercing crying. Some recited the
‘eidduj’ or cried out ‘Sherma Israel’. All of them tore out their hair for having been so naive as to allow
themselves to be led there to those closed doors. Only one idea came to them,
to utter in voices that rose to the heavens their last cry of protest against
the greatest of historical injustices, which was inflicted on completely
innocent people only in order to destroy whole generations all at once in such
a terrible manner
… Because of the great overcrowding, the dying people fell one upon the other,
until a heap rose up of five to six layers one atop the other to the height of
a metre. Mothers froze in a sitting position holding their children in their
arms, and husbands and wives died in an embrace. Some of the people formed a
shapeless mass
…”

The camp commandant at Auschwitz was Rudolph Hoss, who was later to be brought
back from Germany after the war and hanged beside the gas chambers which he had
overseen. In his memoirs he graphically describes in a matter of fact manner
the real horror of what took place in those dark days in the middle of the last
century.

“Jews selected for gassing were taken as quietly as possible to the crematoria,
the men being separated from the women. In the undressing room prisoners of the
special detachment detailed for this purpose would tell them in their own
language that they were going to be bathed and deloused, that they must leave
their clothes neatly together and above all remember where they had put them,
so that they would be able to find them again quickly after delousing. The
prisoners of the special detachment had the greatest interest in seeing that
the operation proceeded smoothly and quickly. After undressing, the Jews went
into the gas chambers, which were furnished with showers and water pipes and
gave a realistic impression of a bath-house.

The women went first with their children, followed by the men who were always
fewer in number. This part of the operation nearly always went smoothly, so the
prisoners of the special detachment would calm those who betrayed any anxiety
or who perhaps had some inkling of their fate. As an additional precaution
these prisoners of the special detachment and an SS man always remained in the
chamber until the last moment. The door would now be quickly screwed up and the
gas immediately discharged by the waiting disinfectors through vents in the
ceiling of the gas chambers, down a shaft that led to the floors. This ensured
the rapid distribution of the gas. It could be observed through the peep-hole
in the door that those who were standing nearest to the induction vents were
killed at once. It can be said that about one third died straight away. The
remainder staggered about and began to scream and struggle for air. The
screaming however soon changed to the death rattle and in a few minutes all lay
still. After twenty minutes at the latest no movement could discerned
…”

For all its faults, the establishment of the European Union has I believe been
instrumental in reducing nation-alist conflict on the continent of Europe and
to a great extent, arguably with the unique circumstances of Yugo-slavia, has
encouraged co-operation and prevented war.

It is unbelievable to me that around the time I was born the sorts of practices
described in this article were taking place in Europe. The one positive thing
that I took from my trip to Auschwitz was to witness the number of young people
and organised school trips being shown round the museum. I occasionally hear
people say that it is time to forget and to put the horror of it all behind us.
I fervently hope that we never forget the industrial genocide at Auschwitz and
similar camps. It is only through remembering and educating that we will
prevent a recurrence of such an iniquitous period of our history which sadly
occurred within living memory.